Week 1 Quiz

Which statement gives the course's definition of anthropology?

Select one.

• The study of humans across place and time, in every society, past and present
• The study of remote and exotic peoples who live far away from modern cities
• The study of ancient life, including dinosaurs, through the fossils it left
• The study of the arts and fine culture that a society treasures most

An illustrative researcher records how guests at a neighborhood block party switch between two languages depending on who they are talking to. Which subfield does this question belong to?

Select one.

• archaeology, because the researcher is recovering how these people lived
• linguistic anthropology, because it studies language in social life
• biological anthropology, because speech depends on the human body
• paleontology, because languages change over very long periods

An illustrative team excavates the hearths, tools, and trash pits of a village people abandoned long ago, to learn how the villagers lived. Which subfield is this?

Select one.

• paleontology, because the team digs remains out of the ground
• cultural anthropology, because it studies a whole way of life today
• archaeology, because it studies past human life through remains
• biological anthropology, because it studies human evolution

A news story describes a team digging up dinosaur bones in a desert. Which field does that work belong to?

Select one.

• archaeology, the subfield that digs for remains
• biological anthropology, the study of evolution
• cultural anthropology, through long-term fieldwork
• paleontology, a field outside anthropology

Which description fits applied anthropology as this course defines it?

Select one.

• a separate fifth subfield that studies only modern businesses and their customers
• the use of anthropology's methods on practical problems, across all four subfields
• the older name for archaeology before it became a subfield
• the study of how human bodies apply energy during work

At the running fieldwork site (an illustrative weekly farmers' market of 24 stalls), you look at how the stalls, the family that runs one of them, the manager's stall assignments and fee, the vendors' association's rules, and the opening bell fit together. Which habit of the anthropological perspective is this?

Select one.

• comparison, because several parts of the market are involved
• fieldwork, because the market can be visited in person
• holism, because it looks at how the parts fit together
• ranking, because some parts matter more than others

You set the running fieldwork site's weekly market beside a supermarket checkout and notice that the supermarket has posted hours but no opening bell and no vendors' association. What does this comparison show?

Select one.

• that the market's routine is one arrangement among several
• that the supermarket is the more advanced and better way to buy food
• that the market's opening bell is a mistake to be fixed
• that every culture buys food in exactly the same way

Many nineteenth-century scholars compared customs using reports written by travelers, missionaries, and colonial officials, without living among the people described. What is this approach later called?

Select one.

• long-term fieldwork among the people
• applied anthropology
• holism
• the "armchair" approach

Which statements describe fieldwork as this course defines it? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• It is long-term research carried out among the people being studied.
• It involves taking part in and recording people's daily life.
• A single afternoon visit to a place counts as fieldwork.
• It means reading travelers' reports about a people from far away.
• It is the discipline's signature method.

True or false: anthropologists study only remote or "exotic" peoples, not their own society.

True or false.

• True
• False